


If You Ink Before You Think

by ConsultingPurplePants



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Because I like to be weird like that, Blowjobs, First Kiss, First Time, John has a lot of tattoos, M/M, Tattoo Artist John, Tattoo Fixers AU, Tattoo!lock, alternate first meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:16:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6512392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingPurplePants/pseuds/ConsultingPurplePants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock goes on <em>Tattoo Fixers</em> to get his simply abominable tattoo covered up. Of course, he gets more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Ink Before You Think

**Author's Note:**

> OK just to be clear I have absolutely no idea how Tattoo Fixers if filmed and it's 2AM so here is this :P  
> Basically, this is a Smut Sunday ficlet (check [my tumblr](http://consultingpurplepants.tumblr.com/tagged/i-made-smut) for more!) that got way too long and ended up here :P  
> Hope you guys like it!

Sherlock hands the printed out image to the tattoo artist with barely a second glance, his eyes already on the room around him. He takes in the small studio while the man prepares the inks beside him.

He barely flinches when the needle first touches the sharp bone of his hip, despite the notoriously painful location. That’s not the important part, the important part is— Yes! There!

He winces slightly when the needle scratches slightly harder, going back over a line that was initially too light, but it doesn’t matter. In the corner of the room is a shelf covered in tattoo inks, small multi-coloured bottles waiting to be used, but he can tell at a glance that nearly all of the reds have expired. The company changed its label design last year, and these bottles still bear the old logo. 

He pulls out his phone and quickly snaps a photo, ignoring the tattoo artist’s protests at being jostled. He’s too busy looking at his phone to even glance at the design on his way out, flinging some cash at the receptionist and heading back out onto the busy streets of London.

It’s getting quite late as he finally gets back to his flat, so he darts up the stairs in order to avoid scandalizing Mrs. Hudson with where he’s just been. He sends off a quick text, _Red ink in tattoos caused blood poisoning, negligence, not deliberate,_ makes sure he’s attached the photo, then goes to get ready to shower. 

He’s just stripping off his shirt, the tattoo finally starting to throb now that the case is no longer at the forefront of his mind, when he catches sight of it in the mirror. His jaw drops, and his hands automatically go to touch it despite the tattoo artist’s strict warning not to. He looks down in horror at what lies beneath his fingers. 

_Fuck._

***  
In the end, getting an appointment on the stupid show isn’t quite as difficult as he’d predicted. The only annoying part is the waiting.

After thoroughly terrorizing three employees on the phone, he’d learned that a cover up tattoo was definitely possible; however, he had to have healed completely before this could be attempted. They book him an appointment on _Tattoo Fixers (If you ink before you think)_ for three months after his infuriated phone call. 

Three months of bearing an impossibly stupid tattoo later, he finally makes his way to Hackney to visit the famous pop-up parlour for his first consultation. Contrary to what’s shown on the telly, there actually is a time period between the first consultation and the actual tattoo; he shudders to think of people simply taking a look at a design and then having it permanently drawn on them only seconds later. He gets a few odd looks from passing hipsters, but eventually makes his way inside. 

“Hi! Are you Sherlock?” asks the young woman at the counter congenially. She puts out her hand, and he looks at it a moment before shaking it disdainfully. She takes one look at him and mutters, “Have a seat, I suppose,” most of the warmth gone from her voice. The cameraman in the back snickers, and the man holding the boom mic elbows him in the ribs as Sherlock sits in the large leather chair on the right. 

“ _Guys!_ ” the girl shouts, her voice carrying surprisingly far for such a small person, and there’s a shout of, “Coming!” before a man comes out of the studio area of the parlour. 

The man is short; that much is obvious right away. However, that doesn’t stop him from easily being the most commanding person in the room. He’s wearing a black t-shirt that stretches slightly across his chest, distressed black jeans and a pair of white converse high-tops. Beneath the t-shirt, his arms are completely covered in two of the most elaborate tattoo sleeves Sherlock has ever seen. His t-shirt hides the top half of an RAMC tattoo, while the sleeve continues from the bottom half of it to form a plant-like design down to his wrist, with desert sand patterns thrown in to contrast it. His right arm is an amalgamation of animal tattoos, the most obvious one being an incredibly large, incredibly detailed wolf emerging from his sleeve, its paw ending on the top of the man’s hand. The most significant detail about all of this, however, is that Sherlock can’t seem to stop staring at him, and for once in his life, it isn’t because he’s trying to deduce him. 

He physically cannot seem stop staring.

The man smiles warmly at him and puts out his hand; this time, Sherlock doesn’t hesitate for even a second before taking it. “Hi! I’m John. Sorry about this, we’re usually three, but Sarah and Mike are already working on some designs. What can I do for you today?”

Sherlock quickly shuts down all thoughts of what he could be doing for him today. The camera man has stopped snickering. 

“I’m here for a tattoo cover up,” Sherlock mumbles, the line having already been fed to him on the phone. John smiles obligingly. 

“All right. So what is it? Don’t tell me a posh git like you got drunk in Magaluf,” John says, his eyes lighting up with mirth. Sherlock looks lost. 

“I— It’s… I got it for a case, but— It’s on my hip,” he blurts, hoping John won’t realize he didn’t catch the joke. He stands and lifts his t-shirt, making sure to stay within the camera’s range the whole time. 

John takes a look, a _long_ look, and Sherlock’s heart sinks. As attractive as the man is, right about now Sherlock is sure he’s going to say something incredibly stupid, and his attractiveness will fall right back down to zero again. He nearly falls over at John’s next words. 

“Was that meant to be the organic structure of caffeine? The functional groups are completely fucked,” he says, looking perplexed. 

Sherlock’s mouth is still open in surprise. He tries frantically to close it so he can get his next words out. 

“How did you…”

And that’s as many words as he’s going to get out today. 

John hasn’t noticed anything off, yet. “Well, they’re nitrogen groups, which means I’m not even sure what he was trying to draw, here,” he says as he points to the offending groups, “But it’s two aromatic rings, and I can only think of one structure that looks like that off the top of my head, and that would be caffeine.”

John sits back on the sofa, as if he hasn’t just rocked Sherlock’s world. And his pants. 

“So what did you want to cover it with?” 

Sherlock collects himself just long enough to come up with another sentence. “I was hoping you could maybe… turn it into a different organic structure?” 

John’s brow furrows a bit in concentration, and Sherlock wants to lick it. He puts his face in his hands in a vain effort to stop thinking about it. 

“Like I said, the only chemical with that structure that I can think of off the top of my head is caffeine. So if you want, we can take a couple of days to think about it?” 

Sherlock nods, pretty sure at this point that he would agree to anything this man says. John grins.

“All right! Great, so I’ll see you soon, then!” 

They shake hands, and the camera man signals that he’s stopped filming. John lets out a whooshing breath, and Sherlock looks down at him in surprise. 

“Sorry, mate, I actually hate being on camera!” John laughs. “Dunno why I agreed to this in the first place…”

For the first time, John looks up and properly makes eye contact with Sherlock, and Sherlock nearly melts at the sight of dark, cobalt blue eyes. John pauses, clearly seeing _something_ in Sherlock’s eyes. His hand is halfway to shaking Sherlock’s, but he redirects it to his waist instead. Sherlock nearly jumps out of his skin at his touch. 

John’s gaze turns slightly… darker. A touch predatory, perhaps. Sherlock’s trousers have never felt this tight before. 

They stand there, holding each other’s gaze as the crew gather their things behind them, until finally, John’s eyes release Sherlock’s to look past him at the rapidly darkening windows. Sherlock turns to follow his gaze, then makes the most daring decision of his entire life. 

He turns back to John. 

“Dinner?” 

John grins, absolutely predatory this time. 

“Starving.”

***  
Dinner is, in short, _wonderful_.

Sherlock accidentally deduces John as they settle into the window booth at the tiny Italian restaurant, but instead of leaving in a huff, John _likes_ it. Sherlock spends the next hour deducing everything from his childhood pet to exactly where the bullet that ended his career as an army doctor hit him in the shoulder, and John is _fascinated_.

Sherlock has never been this smitten in his life. 

They’re just tucking into dessert ( _sharing dessert_ ) when Sherlock finally blurts out the question that’s been weighing on his mind since he deduced that John was an army doctor. 

“How the _hell_ did you end up as a tattoo artist?” 

He immediately clamps his mouth shut, aware of how awkward that sounded, but John, magical, perfect John, _laughs._

“It was intended as therapy for my hand tremor, actually. My doctors thought doing some finer exercises could be helpful to see if I could get some of the mobility back, and I ended up in a tattoo workshop.” He spreads out his hands, shrugs. “Turns out I was pretty good at it!” 

His smile nearly ends Sherlock. John’s calf is brushing up against his under the table, and Sherlock can feel heat growing in his cheeks and creeping down his neck. John smiles the predatory smile again and the heat moves to pool in his belly, instead. Sherlock smiles back, and John’s eyes light up in anticipation.

Sherlock’s phone rings, and the moment vanishes into thin air. 

“Holmes,” he says aggressively. 

“Sherlock, you were right about the ink, but it wasn’t just negligence, the reports here clearly show—OI! GET BACK HERE—.”

“Lestrade. Where did he go?” Sherlock demands, redirecting his attention to the case once more. 

“Just took off down the road, you’ve been around here before, yeah—.”

“I know exactly where he’s going,” Sherlock says, then ends the call, standing up.

John looks disappointed. “You leaving, then?”

Sherlock looks him slowly up and down, weighing his options. 

“I bet you haven’t seen much action since you got back,” he finally says.

“Nope,” John replies.

“Wanna see some now?”

“Oh God, yes.”

***  
The evening ends with the suspect in a headlock that makes John’s biceps bulge in a very agreeable way, and therefore makes Sherlock quite light-headed. Lestrade eventually shows up and gets him into the police car, giving Sherlock a polite nod and John a perplexed look as he drives off. 

Sherlock locks eyes with John through the flashing lights and his knees go weak with the _hunger_ he sees there. 

He mechanically raises his arm to hail the nearest cab. 

It feels like hours before they’re stumbling up the stairs to Sherlock’s flat, John grabbing him and pushing him up against the wall on the landing. He presses in close, and Sherlock can clearly feel that they’re both already hard. This close up, Sherlock can see the slight sheen of sweat from the chase, the exact shade of blue of John’s eyes, the straining black t-shirt, and it’s _intoxicating._ He grabs John’s head and crashes their lips together, John immediately licking inside and drawing a loud moan from Sherlock. They grind together as they kiss, the intensity of the moment urging them on, and John groans as they slot together at exactly the right angle. Sherlock manages to pull back, panting.

“We should...” he tries to gasp out, but John starts licking and sucking at his Adam’s apple and he completely loses his train of thought as all of the blood in his brain is redirected to his cock, which twitches against John’s. He moans for several minutes, completely out of his mind, before John finally pulls back long enough for Sherlock to shove the set of keys in his hand. 

John looks down at them for a moment as though he has no idea what they are, then finally catches on and unlocks the door of the flat behind them. They tumble through it, Sherlock struggling to pull John’s shirt off and walk at the same time. Somehow, they make it to the bedroom, both of their shirts lost somewhere along the way. 

John directs him towards the bed, and Sherlock is momentarily stunned when the backs of his knees make contact with the mattress and he falls backwards, John immediately following to straddle him. He leans down and delicately bites at Sherlock’s right nipple, and Sherlock’s brain short circuits.  
It’s like there’s a direct line from his nipple to his cock, which has definitely stained his trousers at this point. He can distantly hear himself crying out, is vaguely aware of himself grabbing John’s head to pull him closer, then whimpering when John pulls back. Luckily, it’s only so he can switch nipples, and the whole thing starts right up again. Sherlock feels his hips twitch and his eyes roll back in his head, and it’s all he can do not to pass out right there. 

“You’re gorgeous,” John murmurs into his skin, and Sherlock can feel every nerve light up again. “You’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.” 

He starts kissing downwards, and Sherlock manages to gasp out, “Really?”

John stops, staring at him incredulously. “Of course you are. Of course. You’re perfect.”

Sherlock can feel the blush spread all the way down his body. His cock twitches demandingly in its confines, and John clearly feels it, because he gives Sherlock a playful grin before continuing his ministrations. 

He keeps kissing down, stopping to nip playfully at the horrible tattoo, before stopping right above Sherlock’s belt buckle. 

“Can I?”

Sherlock looks down at him, trying to unclench his hands from the sheets. “ _Please,_ ” is the only thing he manages to say, and his voice sounds nothing like his own. 

John gets the trousers open and off, quickly followed by Sherlock’s pants, and then his own (showing off a large, realistic owl on his right thigh), and then John’s mouth is on Sherlock’s cock, and was there so little air in the room before they started? 

John pulls off, grinning. “Breathe, Sherlock.”

Sherlock takes a great gasp of air. John immediately puts his mouth back to work, swirls his tongue, and Sherlock releases all of his air again in a helpless whimper. 

John is relentless, his tongue rubbing in all of the right places as Sherlock makes wordless sounds of pleasure. John’s mouth feels like hot velvet, and he nearly comes when he feels John’s throat muscles close around the tip of his cock. His hips have started moving on their own, and he’s much too far gone to be able to stop them; besides, John seems to be enjoying it. He moans around Sherlock’s cock, and he feels the vibrations in his very bones, and he’s getting close—

“John, I’m—.” He cuts off with a hoarse cry as John reaches a hand up, twists his right nipple _hard,_ and swallows around his cock at the same time. The pleasure washes over him like a wave, and his words devolve into shouts of John’s name as he empties himself in John’s throat, his hips bucking furiously and his body completely out of his own control.

He comes back to himself slowly. He finally looks up at John, and while he doesn’t immediately get hard again, it’s a very near thing. 

John’s lips are red and swollen from sucking him, his hair sticking up every which way, the beautiful patterns on his body twisting and stretching with his every movement, and his cock standing proudly at attention before him. Sherlock is on him before he even has a chance to think about it, yanking him down into the bed and kissing him furiously. 

John is the one moaning now, his lips hot and desperate as his body rocks into Sherlock’s seemingly of its own accord. Sherlock reaches down and wraps a hand around his cock, swallowing the beautiful, perfect sounds John makes when he does. 

“Is this good?” Sherlock murmurs against his lips, and John gasps and thrusts up. Sherlock twists his wrist at the end of the stroke, making John practically writhe in his arms. He’s already close. 

“Yes, _yes, Jesus,_ Sherlock, _yes,_ ” John manages, and then his cock is jerking in Sherlock’s grip as it empties itself over his fist, John’s body shaking apart in his arms. He strokes him until the aftershocks stop, and then they lie there together, panting in the dark. 

Eventually, John stirs a little and looks down. When he looks back up at Sherlock, a corner of his mouth is twitching upwards almost convulsively, and he kisses Sherlock quickly and chastely. 

“What is it?”

John looks down again, and erupts into laughter. “You’ve still got a sock on!” 

Sherlock tries to frown, but finds that he can’t; after a moment, he finds himself joining in, the entire bed shaking with their mirth. 

Eventually, they quiet down and fall asleep, wrapped up together, and when they wake up, John grinning suggestively down at Sherlock and asking, “Can you deduce what I’m thinking about right now?” Sherlock can’t help but think that John is perfect.

***  
A move, several months, and twenty-seven chases involving bulging biceps later, John nudges Sherlock awake at half four in the morning. Sherlock somehow manages to rouse himself from sleep, blinking blearily up at him. 

“Sherlock,” John whispers.

“What is it?”

“I’ve just realized. You never did get that bloody tattoo covered up.”

Sherlock rolls over so that his words are muffled into John’s chest, and John wraps his arms protectively around his back. 

“You said it had to have two aromatic rings and similar functional groups, correct?” he asks John’s pectoral. 

John nods into the top of his head. 

“Adenosine, and it has to be you that does it,” Sherlock mumbles, then promptly falls back asleep. 

John lies back, dragging Sherlock with him, and looks down lovingly at the curly head resting on his chest. He feels like his heart might burst with how much he loves Sherlock, which is actually pretty relevant at the moment, because adenosine is used to stop the heart. 

And it’s wonderful to know that _he’s_ capable of making Sherlock’s heart skip a beat, too.


End file.
